


If Only I Had An Enemy Bigger Than My Apathy (I Would Have Won)

by aeveee



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5017828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeveee/pseuds/aeveee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after the Mountain and Clarke still can't seem to escape the silence of radiation. Or Lexa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Only I Had An Enemy Bigger Than My Apathy (I Would Have Won)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [botherd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/botherd/gifts).



> Prompt: Would love anything about them finding their way back to each other post-canon (perhaps set a little way in the future?)
> 
> Title from 'I Gave It All' by Mumford and Sons. Thanks to [scryves](http://scryves.tumblr.com/) for the beta. Words would not have happened without you, as per usual.

\--

There is a moment - brief, a fever dream fanned by falling asleep too close to the fire - where Clarke thinks of going back. She dwells on her mother’s forgiveness, on Bellamy’s calm voice. When she wakes, the sun is cool and shy between the trees and Clarke shrugs the feeling of warmth from around her shoulders, lets it fall as a blanket would if she had one. The fire sits spent just beside her feet.

She turns back once that day. The sun has just passed its peak as she breathes deep. Clarke thinks of the Ark, of Tondc, and all the people she has held dear in either place. When she stares at the Mountain, shadowless in the noon heat, the pain of Raven's screams fills her ears until any calm she's gathered has shattered again.

Clarke takes one last look, and doesn’t look back after that.

\--

Spring bleeds into fall and the nights grow cold. Clarke wakes to darkness, her breath fogging so much she thinks she breathes the morning dew. All she has is the jacket she wore when she broke the Mountain and the cloak Lexa threw at her in Tondc. She wears them both now, thinks of how fitting it is that her blood is kept warm by items so soaked in the blood of others. That day, she doesn’t stop walking.

\--

Clarke passes three villages before winter’s first heavy snowfall forces her to seek shelter. The days have become biting, wind a constant press to her brittle spine and Clarke finds she can’t remember the last fire she built that warmed more than her fingertips. She's staring at a makeshift hut with smoke billowing from an opening in its roof when she hears:

“Do not move.”

It’s a woman’s voice. Her English is foreign, weighted with an emphasis not of the _Trikru_. As Clarke turns with cracked palms in the air, she’s faced with a warrior whose years have turned her expression harsh.

"I mean no harm," Clarke says in English first; then, haltingly, " _Ai gaf gouthru klir._ ”

The woman does not lower her spear at Clarke’s splintered Trigedasleng. Clarke watches as the spear point rotates one half turn while the woman considers her, breath held tight in her chest and muscles too stiff to move. Then: " _Skaikru._ You are _Klok kom Skaikru_."

"Yes," Clarke says.

"You killed the Mountain."

"Yes," Clarke says.

"You are a murderer."

The snow slices at Clarke’s cheeks. "Yes."

The woman considers her for a moment longer before the spear point swings upward and Clarke breathes again, fog betraying her relief.

“Will you let me pass?” Clarke asks after the woman says nothing. The snow has started falling in earnest and it seeps past Clarke’s cloak, through her jacket and into her bones. She knows the longer she stays out in the open, the worse her chances of seeing the ground thaw again become. Still, the woman has not opened her land to her and Clarke won’t push. She will never push into a place that isn’t hers again.

“What were you before you became a murderer, Clarke of the Sky People?” the woman asks. The spear sinks into the growing snow but the woman does not lift it. Her braids frost beneath the cold as she watches Clarke with eyes Clarke has seen before - in Anya, in Indra, in her mother after the missile - and Clarke searches somewhere she dared not touch before for fear of tainting with blood and says:

“A healer.”

The woman nods.

“Then a healer you will be again.”

\--

Months pass, winter bringing storms and times of deep, frozen calm, and Clarke convalesces. She learns to hunt, learns to make her own furs to replace her ill-serving jacket and cloak, and slowly she learns of the village she’s been brought into. The woman who met her refuses to name herself - “I do not trust _Skaikru._ Not even you, Mountain Killer.” - but Clarke learns the names of the children around her and the aging healer who can no longer venture into the forest even when winter is at its kindest. The hut she saw the first night becomes her own.

It isn’t until spring has begun its gentle thaw that Clarke lets herself feel it. Home has always been more of a concept, a direction derived of people rather than places since she reached the ground. Clarke spends her days here teaching English to the children, separating blood from words taught only for war. She makes crumbling pastels and shares them with one boy who takes particular interest in the smears of blue and brown and green of her drawings. When the village healer becomes bedridden, Clarke takes to the forest for roots and plants Earth Skills never taught her. It isn’t home, but it isn't loss either. Clarke takes it for the quiet that it is.

The Mountain sits heavy at her back, though, and Clarke listens to the screams and silence of radiation until the quiet unravels. Balance, as always, is elusive.

\--

Clarke becomes the village healer. Summer spreads a blanket of drowsy warmth that even their northern air lets them enjoy for a few weeks and the pyre lit for the old healer burns bright. Clarke hesitates only a breath before she intones, “ _Yo gonplei ste odon_.” The children murmur, “May we meet again,” after her and Clarke doesn’t breathe for a long time after that.

\--

A year passes, summer shifting into autumn and winter into a cool, weak spring. Clarke watches as the village awakens, sluggish beneath layers of snow the sky gifted them. The scouts that braved the harsh of winter come home weary and warm and Clarke is there as they embrace their families, whispering of movement just past their borders.

News of war seems constant and Clarke wonders about the few but furtive glances she receives, wonders if the Sky People have moved under Bellamy’s command. There is another possibility but Clarke will not think of her - she stows the worry of battle away with the scouts’ winter gear.

If Lexa can leave her to a mountain of corpses, Clarke will not do her the honour of remembrance. Peace cost too much to dwell on a traitor.

\--

Lexa arrives the winter of Clarke’s second year. Clarke’s body remembers the sound: the thundering of hooves, the jar of the earth that travels up her legs into her ribcage. The children are with her when a messenger bursts past the village gates and Clarke tries to settle them, hands soft on tearful faces. The village’s few warriors gather and Nyara - the one who greeted Clarke, who gave her name when Clarke downed her first boar the previous spring - keeps a wary spear at her side even as the Commander appears on horseback, red sash brilliant against the snow.

“Lexa,” Clarke breathes. The name sounds foreign - too soft, too weak. Clarke’s tongue twists into something time and the cold have helped heal her into and she tries again. “ _Heda Leksa kom Trikru_.”

“Clarke,” Lexa says.

The messenger moves toward Clarke as though to speak to her but it’s wrong - Clarke is not the one, Clarke will never be the one again - and her muscles coil even as Nyara steps forward, spear point raised and eyes dark. “I am the chief of this village,” she says, hard and in English. She turns her back to Clarke and Clarke draws strength from the familiarity of the sight, long hours spent trailing Nyara in the forest instilling a learned calm in her limbs. “You deliver your words to me.”

The messenger stiffens. He turns to Lexa but the Commander offers no guidance; instead, her eyes remain fixed on Clarke, pale and unwavering. Nyara waits with her spear still in hand until Lexa slowly turns to face her - Clarke feels the pit in her stomach lessen without the weight of Lexa’s gaze feeding it - and she stands tall while the Commander observes, body swaying easily with her horse’s movement.

“We are here to gather information,” Lexa finally says. Her voice is as unforgiving as Clarke remembers it; Nyara seems not to care. “Your village is of strategic location; we hope to scout and confirm the rumours that have reached Polis in recent months.”

“You worry that _Azgeda_ is no longer hibernating.” Nyara says. The only thing that signals her unease is the way her spear moves, ever so slightly upward, and Clarke feels the apprehension that burns in her gut seep up her throat.

Then, Lexa says: “I worry that hibernation has not soothed want of war.”

If the accusation bothers Nyara she doesn’t show it. In Clarke it crawls along her skin, friction between her furs and herself until she can’t help but move. She channels it into her jaw and feels her teeth creak with the effort. Lexa’s eyes find the movement almost immediately.

“I am in no position to refuse the Commander of the Twelve Clans, as you are our Commander as well,” Nyara says. Clarke barely hears the words as she meets Lexa’s heavy gaze. “If you wish to use my village as your scout post, we will do what we can to help. In the meantime, I will gather my scouts so we may relay our knowledge to yours.”

Lexa gives a nod - it’s a slow thing Clarke remembers well - and her people dismount, the messenger quickly taking the reins of Lexa’s horse even before the Commander’s boots sink into the snow. “Thank you, _Nyara kom Azgeda_.” Her eyes never leave Clarke’s.

For the first time in a year, Nyara looks at her as she would an outsider and Clarke can’t find it in herself to fault her for it.

\--

Lexa follows Clarke to her hut. Clarke doesn't bother holding the opening flap for Lexa as she enters and she half expects Lexa not to be there when she turns around, but Lexa stands just inside of the entrance, hand on the hilt of her sword.

“You have been living in an Ice Nation village,” Lexa says after the silence has stretched to the point of painful. The warpaint smeared across her cheekbones is dotted with melting snow and Clarke can see hints of chilled pink beneath; it spreads both hate and a weakness she loathes herself for through her chest.

“Did you think I was hiding from you?”

Lexa blinks. “Do you believe I searched for you?”

The laugh Clarke gives is bitter, a shattering of all of her progress. The hate now fills her to her fingertips, raw and angry and bright, and she seethes with it. “I don’t know, _Heda_. Wouldn’t you want to keep track of a girl who can kill a mountain?”

Lexa lowers her gaze. Clarke can feel it on the clench of her jaw, the tightness of her neck, the sharp angles of her shoulders and fists. It makes her want to spit in Lexa’s face because she remembers this - the exact dip of Lexa’s eyes before she had looked back up and told Clarke to die - and it’s been years but she can’t seem to get away from this, from Lexa. Raven’s screams echo in her ears and no amount of cool winter air will stop it.

“I am glad you are alive, Clarke,” Lexa says.

“I killed the Mountain.”

“Yes,” Lexa says.

“You ran.”

“I did not run.”

“You ran. You ran the second you saw an opening. Do your people see you for the traitor that you are? Do they question why someone who would betray their only ally for the favour of their greatest enemy still calls herself _Heda_?”

“Do not presume to call me names, Clarke,” Lexa bites but Clarke snarls, the sound raw and angry.

“Don’t you fucking use my name, _Lexa_. Don’t fucking talk to me like you know me, like you didn’t just leave me and all of my people to die. Don’t talk to me like - ” The anger tastes of bile now, of disgust bearing the weight of all the people she let radiation claim. Raven’s screams echo louder and Clarke slaps her hands to her ears.

“Clarke,” Lexa starts but Clarke doesn’t hear it. She’s stumbling out of the hut, falling into the numbing cold of winter.

It seems all she’s good for is breaking, still, and she doesn’t stop the tears from sliding hot down her cheeks.

\--

What she had meant to say was: don’t talk to me like you still care. What she had seen when Lexa had first caught sight of her was: no matter her practiced indifference or her careful words, Lexa still very clearly did. Clarke hates her all the more for it.

\--

Nyara asks Clarke to accompany her to a strategy meeting days later and Clarke only agrees because of the way Nyara watches her, distant and waiting for weakness. She pulls her furs on in silence and follows Nyara to the council chambers, snow crowning her braided hair until she feels a part of the cold itself.

The meeting is long, dull in its details and full of unnecessary doubt. Lexa’s men seem to question any knowledge they haven’t gained themselves and while Nyara shows patience fitting for a village chief, Clarke can see the way each dismissal cuts. She waits until the final thread of calm begins to fray before considering that perhaps this resistance is why Nyara requested her presence - it would be easy enough to intervene, the sight of people disrespecting Nyara pulls angry courage from Clarke’s bones - but she remembers Nyara’s spear between her and the messenger from the first day and it keeps her silent. Disrespect from another clan is one thing, disrespect from someone at her side is another and Clarke will not do that, not after -

“Enough.”

Lexa has stayed quiet since Clarke’s appearance, face a study in aloof calm. Now, she seems to grow larger with each breath, displeasure carved sharp into her brow. The snap of her voice leaves a weighted uncertainty behind and Clarke feels her anger curl out into her muscles until she’s pulled taut with the effort of holding herself still. Nyara remains unmoved.

“ _Heda_ \- ”

“No. You have done enough, _Nyara kom Azgeda_. This meeting has proven fruitless and my people do not have the luxury of wasted of time.” It’s only now that Lexa meets Clarke’s gaze, sharp and heavy. “If we cannot reach an appropriate plan for a joint scouting mission then we will go alone.”

“I do not think that is a wise decision,” Nyara tries. Lexa’s eyes snap back to her.

“You misunderstand me. My men cannot see past their egos to the needs of our people. I do not share their blindness. Tomorrow, you and your best scouts will lead me to where you last saw _Azgeda_ movement and I will confirm the rumours for myself. We will discuss further action then.”

Lexa’s words are met with silence; if Lexa’s men have objections, they stifle them in the shuffling of their boots. There’s a frustration that rings thunderous from Lexa’s expression and Clarke traces it along the brush of her warpaint into the tightness of her lips. Not for the first time, Clarke wonders if Lexa knows just how easily she telegraphs her emotions.

“You will take none of your people, then?” Nyara asks. Lexa surveys her men with a dark eye before giving a short shake of her head.

“I will meet you here at first light. I trust you will have a party in order by then?”

“Yes, _Heda_.”

Lexa makes a noise of dismissal, quiet and disgusted, and Clarke turns to leave except Nyara reaches out, hand hard on her shoulder before she’s managed two steps. Lexa’s gaze is heavy, dark with an anger that Clarke knows extends beyond the strategy meeting and into their unresolved confrontation from before. It makes her grit her teeth.

“What’s happening. Nyara?”

“The years have not erased the fact that you played an important role in the last battle the Grounders fought. Your appearance in _Azgeda_ territory as war approaches begs the question: what are you planning, _Klok kom Skaikru_?”

Clarke looks from Nyara, features cold but impartial, to Lexa, silent and unreadable in the half light, and disgust boils in her gut. “I’m not planning anything.”

“You would remain indifferent?”

“I have no stake in this!” Clarke scoffs, shrugging Nyara’s hand off of her shoulder. “I’ve been living here for two years. You’ve _seen_ me these two years. Has anything I’ve done suggest I’ve been doing anything other than living?”

Nyara flexes her fingers, dropping her gaze before meeting Clarke’s again. “You defeated the Mountain when we could not, Clarke. It would be unwise to discount you.”

“You don’t even know what happened there,” Clarke spits, “No-one here knows. I didn’t defeat them, I just - I killed them all.”

“If that is what is required -”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Clarke says. Her eyes burn into Lexa’s. “Don’t. Your Commander here may have you believe that it was all worth it, that the ends justify the means, but what she didn’t tell you was that there were children in there. There were children and old people and the Mountain was drilling into my mother when I found her but the people I killed had nothing to do with it. They were innocent and I killed so many - ” Clarke breathes deep, tries to swallow the bile that rises at the remembrance of her mother’s screams and the muffled sounds of heads hitting tables. “Your Commander couldn’t have told you that because she was never there. She ran the first second she could and left my people to die. What’s stopping her from doing the same to yours?”

Nyara blinks.

“The difference,” Lexa says, voice clipped as though she’s had to claw each word out from behind her teeth, “is that these people are my people. I am the Commander of the Twelve Clans. While the Ice Nation moves as though it is not, it is still one of mine.” Lexa’s eyes rest heavy on Clarke’s. “I will protect what is mine.”

Clarke watches Nyara bow her head respectfully, watches Lexa step forward until the fading daylight catches on her braids, presses a warm spot of brightness on her brow. She’s never seen Lexa look so tired.

“What will you do, Clarke?”

Clarke turns to Nyara. “You once told me I’d be a healer again. Do you still believe that?”

“Yes,” Nyara says. Lexa watches the exchange with a quiet uncertainty playing across her features, hand flexing only to settle on the hilt of her sword.

“Then that’s what I’ll be,” Clarke says, “I’ll be in the village. I will be a healer.”

Lexa nods. Nyara watches her, notes the way she’s shaking slightly but eventually she turns away and leaves the hut to a silence that Clarke feels dull against her breast.

“Clarke,” Lexa starts.

“Don’t,” Clarke says.

Lexa stops.

\--

She dreams of Lexa. She dreams of lips, of slow, wet heat and pale skin beneath shaking fingertips. In her dream, Lexa is soft and young and her warpaint is made of an urgent flush that drips past her collarbones. When she wakes, Clarke bites the inside of her cheek until she draws blood, until the coppery sting washes the want from her lips. It doesn't stop the twist in her chest as she watches Lexa and Nyara ride away.

\--

Lexa comes back from the scouting mission. Nyara comes back with a bloodied side.

Clarke rushes Nyara into the medical hut, face tight with worry, and she brushes Nyara’s hands aside to reveal a gash that glances off ribs.

“The vantage point was at an outcrop hidden by trees. We were just beginning to observe when they dragged the first woman out.”

“Keep still,” Clarke murmurs, dropping a bloodied rag away in favour of the tough bandages she’d woven herself in the calm of spring.

“I will never forget the scream,” Nyara says, wincing as Clarke tugs on the bandage, “In moments of true loss I know I will hear it in my ears again, without end. I cannot imagine…”

Clarke glances up at Nyara’s pause. “What happened?”

“I cannot - ” Nyara takes a breath, “The Commander froze, right after the woman was tied to the stake and the first sword was drawn. She said something, but I could not hear over the screams. If I had been looking elsewhere I would not have caught her in time. She meant to draw her sword - she would have given herself away without thought.”

Clarke can see it easily: Lexa in a surge of motion that trails cold purpose to everyone but those who can see her fire. She remembers it from when Lexa had roared for her to stay put while she herself rose, sword in hand, to deal with the snipers. Clarke had let Lincoln keep her, watched Lexa’s back retreat into shadows. For one blazing moment, she had fallen for the strength in Lexa’s limbs.

She feels cold now, but Clarke can still see it.

The rest of the story comes in spurts: from scouts, from Nyara when Clarke checks on her wound again later in the night. She hears of how Nyara had pulled the Commander into the snow, buried her beneath her weight in anticipation of resistance. Instead, Lexa had lain motionless, sword half drawn and tight in her fist. Nyara’s blood had dotted the snow from the bite of the exposed blade.

“Did the Commander say anything else, when you were coming back?”

“No,” Nyara says. She takes the herb that Clarke holds out to her, dutifully chews it. “The Commander fell silent, turned pale after they - ” Nyara stops, eyes wide and dark on Clarke’s. “They are killing family to force villages to turn. The _Trikru_ have a punishment of the flesh but the _Azgeda_ , we have a punishment of the heart.”

Clarke nods. She knows what Lexa must have said, now:

_She was captured by the Ice Nation whose Queen believed she knew my secrets. Her name was Kostia._

“The woman became four pieces of herself, one for each refusal. I cannot imagine how many more hearts have been pieced for the _Azgeda_ to have gathered so many warriors. They must be stopped, before they reach my people. I cannot allow those under my protection to suffer.”

“We’ll do everything we can,” Clarke says, hand warm on Nyara’s shoulder. “I promise.”

It isn’t until she reaches her own hut, bypassing Lexa’s temporary one in a swell of exhaustion, that Clarke realizes what she’s said. The weight of it - the we, the certainty with which she had included herself - presses hard into her chest and sleep eludes her for the rest of the night.

\--

“I am told you have forbidden Nyara from leaving the village until her wound heals.”

Clarke looks up, bandages dripping in her hands as she pauses in her washing. The village has been a warm kind of quiet for long hours now, slumber softening the edge of panic that has gripped its people in the past days. Clarke hadn’t been expecting company but Lexa stands in the entrance of her hut, face scrubbed bare and skin unnaturally pale in the flickering light.

“This is a particularly inopportune time for inaction.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “If you’ve come to antagonize me you should stop wasting your time.”

Lexa hums. The silence that settles is heavy, dampening the sounds of water dripping and the snapping of bandages as Clarke works to dry them. Clarke keeps her back to it for as long she can but eventually it pushes beneath her skin and she gives.

“What do you want, Lexa.”

Lexa's eyes are dark, attention half caught between a familiar kind of intensity and dipping away in acquiescence. She looks otherworldly in the firelight and Clarke is reminded of the way the sun had danced across Lexa’s brow in the war tent, the softness of Lexa’s touch on her cheek.

“I have informed Nyara that we must return to Polis.”

Clarke waits. The words, while true, were not what Lexa had wanted to say. Emotions that Lexa keeps hold of so tightly in the light of day seem to spool out thoughtlessly at night and Clarke waits, waits until Lexa gives in, too. She waits until she stops being the only one to speak with wounds open and raw.

“I am glad that you are alive, Clarke. That you survived the Mountain.”

“Say what you mean, Lexa,” Clarke says, tired. Lexa shakes her head.

“Do you think I did not mean that?”

“I don’t think you came here to try to convince me you did the right thing again, so just stop. Why are you here?”

Something in Lexa shifts, the softness brought on by twilight giving way to defiance. It pools steel into Clarke’s muscles and she draws strength from it, glad for once that she’s acting and not reacting. For a moment, Clarke thinks Lexa may also feel the anger that Clarke knows too well, that creeps beneath her skin every time she looks at Lexa and remembers the Mountain. The moment breaks when she sees the overly familiar sight of Lexa turning her back on her and walking away.

“Don’t you dare,” Clarke growls, “Don’t you just walk away from something you don’t like again.”

“I have had enough of you accusing me of running, Clarke,” Lexa says, eyes flashing as she whips around. “If you do not want to hear what I have to say then there is no reason for me to continue.”

“You haven’t said anything worth anything!”

“I do not know what you think is something of worth anymore! What would you have me do? Would you rather I apologize for something I know was right to make you feel better?”

“God forbid you apologize for anything,” Clarke spits.

“What is the point of this?” Lexa asks. “What must I do to convince you - ”

“You left me to _die_ , Lexa. You promised me you would help me save my people, you made me think you cared. Then you just left me to die. I don’t know exactly what I want from you but I do know that I need you to stop pretending like what you did makes sense. That what you did was - ” Clarke stops, tries to breathe in deeply but the sight of Lexa flushed with anger robs her of air. “How do you leave someone you care about to die? The answer is that you didn’t care.”

“Clarke - ”

“Why are you really here, Lexa?”

The silence that stretches between them snaps with words that stay lodged in heaving chests. Lexa looks at Clarke like she’s at once the most beautiful and most devastating thing she’s ever seen and it claws at Clarke, tears into her until all she wants is for Lexa to disappear. Instead, Lexa slowly approaches, hands open in a silent question.

“I did not know you were here, when I arrived in this village. I did not know what I would do if I ever saw you again. I still do not. I just know that - ”

Lexa stops just short of Clarke, face more open than Clarke has ever seen it. She can almost hear the words again - _not everyone, not you_ \- and she knows even before Lexa’s gaze drops to her lips what Lexa wants. Clarke could stop her with a palm against her collarbone but a part of her craves this, craves the quiet, intense way Lexa seems to fall towards her.

When Lexa kisses her, Clarke feels her anger swell then crest, crashing into something shallow enough for her to finally try to understand. It ripples as Lexa’s fingers brush against the back of her neck, ebbs as Clarke moves forward and presses her palms into Lexa’s sides.

Her lips feel swollen after Lexa pulls away.

“I cared, Clarke. I still do.”

“You left.”

“I saved my people. You are - ” Lexa’s eyes rove over her face, searching, “You are something I never expected, but you are not mine and my duty lies in protecting what is mine.”

Clarke nods. “Go back to Polis.”

“Clarke.”

“The longer you stay in this village, the more danger Nyara’s people will be in. You’re right in that. You said you need to protect what is yours? Nyara’s people are your people and they stand with you even though they’re Ice Nation. Keep them safe.”

Lexa pulls back. “And you? What will you do?”

Clarke smiles. “I am the village healer. I stay with those who need me.”

Lexa traces fingertips along Clarke’s cheekbones, expression distant.

“Protect your people, Lexa.”

“Are you one of mine, now?”

Clarke pulls away. A part of her hates herself for this, for giving in and letting the lull of another person overpower the blood of the Mountain, but even as Lexa’s touch begins to grow repulsive it reminds her of the relief of her mother’s hug, of Bellamy’s hand over her own in a time Clarke thought she would shatter. Clarke gives herself this moment before she withdraws. She doesn’t miss the way Lexa fights not to follow her.

“Ride safe.”

Lexa nods. She presses a chaste kiss to Clarke’s brow and walks away.

\--

Winter yields to a bold spring. The snow that accompanied Lexa’s arrival melts not long after her departure. Clarke feels the shift in the air, watches the village begin to sharpen under Nyara’s command. She's standing with Nyara at the village entrance when the scouts begin to gather for their spring departure.

“I will be gone for three days at most. The Ice Queen does not tend toward long summits and I have no intentions of dwelling.”

“Good,” is all Clarke says. Nyara gauges her for a moment longer before swinging up onto her horse, a movement she manages with ease despite the new scar in her side.

“Keep my people safe in my absence, _Klok kom Skaikru_.”

Clarke thinks of Bellamy, growing smaller and smaller as she had walked away from the Ark, of Lexa riding away to Polis. Between them she holds the weight of Nyara’s trust in her and feeds it into her newfound sense of peace, starts to build herself again with the strength she’s been given by others and the calm she’s found in herself. Lexa’s touch stays warm on her skin.

“I will.”

The Mountain sits heavy at her back, but Clarke turns towards it, back into the village and the peal of children’s laughter.


End file.
